(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to optical fiber-connecting reinforcing members to be used for connecting tip ends of optical fibers, and also to a process for producing such reinforcing members.
(2) Related Art Statement
Optical fibers used for the purpose of optical communications and the like, are extremely thin quartz glass fibers having small diameters of around 100 .mu.m. Thus, when tip ends of these optical fibers are to be connected together, a connecting portion needs to be reinforced by fixing the connecting portion to a reinforcing member which is formed by providing a hot melt layer on one side surface of a reinforcing ceramic base plate having the same coefficient of thermal expansion as that of the optical fibers. The above reinforcing member has conventionally been produced by hot pressing the reinforcing base plate onto a surface of a hot melt film and cutting the hot melt film in the same size as that of the reinforcing base plate with a cutter. Thus, there are problems to that the hot melt film attaches during the hot pressing to a lower holding plate for hot pressing and is not easily removed. Further, the hot melt film must be cut in a number of times, thus raising production costs. Furthermore, since such a conventional reinforcing member exposes an optical fiber-bonding surface of the hot melt film outside, dirts or dusts are likely to attach to the bonding surface during wiring.